USB Dead Drops - MakerBot Industries

The idea behind this morning’s post about USB flash drives struck me last night/this morning on a whim. Through absolutely no coordination whatsoever, I noticed the appearance of a photopool series on Flickr with every photo labeled “Dead Drops.” From the photos in the pool it appears someone1 is going around New York epoxying and cementing USB flash drives into public crevices. 2

A dead drop is, according to Wikipedia, “a location used to secretly pass items between two people, without requiring them to meet.”

Now, for the questions:

Who is doing this and why? Why those locations? What are on these drives? Where are they? Is someone mapping them? Are they read-only? 3 And, how long before someone sitting on a park bench or leaning up against a phone booth scrapes themselves on one of these?